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If I say: Then attention becomes more valuable under Capitalism, so a siginficant portion of people will choose to have low screen time? Think of a "Deep Work"

by sedeki 4y ago

If I say: Then attention becomes more valuable under Capitalism, so a siginficant portion of people will choose to have low screen time? Think of a "Deep Work" Movement or so. I don't intend the above to be read as a would-be theorem in economics ("if-then"), I just want to know how you reason here.

411111111111111 4y ago
> Then attention becomes more valuable under Capitalism, so a siginficant portion of people will choose to have low screen time? I'm not the person you've responded to but i don't think that these sentences are logically connected. If the former is true then the hustle to get this attention will become even stronger, increasing the attention economy. Unless you're not talking about valuable in a momentary manner, but that would mean you've moved on from capitalism.
- mkmk3 4y ago
  I don't know, it implies people would be more conservative with their attention if they had some better way to spend it. I mean, there are obvious ways like studying or being with good family and friends or exercising, but they're hard or undesirable for x/y/z. Maybe some of these difficulties are an inherent part of the value, sometimes it's probably not. Technology should be modulating these difficulties, and instead some of it is short circuiting our more basic emotional systems. Lower hanging fruit. Though I wonder if the more difficult tasks that make us happier, more sustainable as individuals could be pursued in a purely capitalistic incentive scheme, provided it's viewed on a time scale of ten or twenty years instead of one. What businesses take such a long term perspective though?
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  I think the point is that if everyone is hustling for attention, the ability to do deep work becomes more valuable. Humans are weird, attention isn't nearly the only way to make money, and in fact, attention itself _depends_ on these other ways to even exist. Think of it like the rich. Even though they themselves would never build a road, nor do they value building a road, they benefit hugely from them, such that those who are able to build roads make money. And the less people there are that can build roads, paradoxically, the more valuable the ability to build roads becomes. It's for these reasons that things are so cyclical, this too shall pass.

by sedeki 4y ago

411111111111111 4y ago

> Then attention becomes more valuable under Capitalism, so a siginficant portion of people will choose to have low screen time? I'm not the person you've responded to but i don't think that these sentences are logically connected. If the former is true then the hustle to get this attention will become even stronger, increasing the attention economy. Unless you're not talking about valuable in a momentary manner, but that would mean you've moved on from capitalism.

mkmk3 4y ago
I don't know, it implies people would be more conservative with their attention if they had some better way to spend it. I mean, there are obvious ways like studying or being with good family and friends or exercising, but they're hard or undesirable for x/y/z. Maybe some of these difficulties are an inherent part of the value, sometimes it's probably not. Technology should be modulating these difficulties, and instead some of it is short circuiting our more basic emotional systems. Lower hanging fruit. Though I wonder if the more difficult tasks that make us happier, more sustainable as individuals could be pursued in a purely capitalistic incentive scheme, provided it's viewed on a time scale of ten or twenty years instead of one. What businesses take such a long term perspective though?
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I think the point is that if everyone is hustling for attention, the ability to do deep work becomes more valuable. Humans are weird, attention isn't nearly the only way to make money, and in fact, attention itself _depends_ on these other ways to even exist. Think of it like the rich. Even though they themselves would never build a road, nor do they value building a road, they benefit hugely from them, such that those who are able to build roads make money. And the less people there are that can build roads, paradoxically, the more valuable the ability to build roads becomes. It's for these reasons that things are so cyclical, this too shall pass.